


bring it on home to me

by bevioletskies



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-02-08 17:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18628126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bevioletskies/pseuds/bevioletskies
Summary: The fight of everyone’s lives may be over, but for Nebula, Peter, and the rest of the Guardians, the search for the person they love most has just begun.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **MAJOR** spoiler warning for _Avengers: Endgame_ , though I am a little vague about the events of what happened. Regardless, please don't let me spoil it for you!
> 
> Fic title is, of course, from the song [Bring It On Home To Me](https://open.spotify.com/track/0WVTQp3SOCuMr08jh1jweV?si=W-L0JvH4R-WpMIhZ35MMdQ) by Sam Cooke.

Peter woke to a cold bed, his teeth chattering and his feet numb, and promptly rolled over to blindly pull his tablet off his bedside table - if one could call it that, given that it was an old crate he’d found in a junkyard on Knowhere - and attempt to remotely adjust the Benatar’s temperature controls. To his utter lack of surprise, it didn’t work. He wasn’t sure Rocket’s recent rewiring of the ship was to blame, but he was sure he was going to say so at the next team meeting, anyway.

He stumbled out of bed, got dressed, considered for a total of thirty seconds as to whether he wanted to shave the slow-growing beard he’d been developing with little success over the last few months or so, and then waved it off, making his way out of his tiny little bunk and into the ship’s communal area. There, sat at the console table, was Nebula, her feet propped up on its surface and her inky black eyes fixated on him like she knew he was coming (she probably did).

“You eat yet?” Peter asked, yawning loudly. She recoiled at the sound.

“No,” she said shortly. “Our rations are lacking. We need to make another stop before we unnecessarily starve ourselves to death.”

Peter grinned. “I like that you said ‘our’. Gives me the warm fuzzies.” Nebula glared, her eyes following him all the way around the room as he tapped into the ship’s operating system on the main holoscreen. She didn’t miss the way his face fell the slightest bit, the way he took a sharp inhale to prepare himself for his next line of questioning. “Find anything yesterday?”

“Nothing. The same as the day before that, and the day before that, and the weeks and months before that,” Nebula said. She turned away, suddenly finding it too hard to look at him, to know that every emotion written on his face was on par with every emotion that stirred in her chest. “We know that. _You_ know that.”

He swallowed, his hand hovering over the screen. Subconsciously, or instinctively, really, he’d taken himself to the criminal records that the Nova Corps had written up on them what felt like decades ago. The picture that stared back at him looked familiar but not quite close enough, the detailed write-up that sounded like someone he knew but not the someone he knew now. Or maybe had known.

“Don’t mean we have to accept it,” he finally said, turning to look at her. “I’m done being passive. Passive is gettin’ us nowhere. We don’t have the right to call ourselves the Guardians if all we do is sit around like a bunch of a-holes.”

“Then it’s good that I’m not one,” Nebula retorted. Peter shoved the screen aside and stomped right up to her, face-to-face, slamming his palms down on the table. He almost detected a twitch in her otherwise stone-cold expression, a betrayal that revealed how affected she truly was.

“You’re a Guardian, Nebula, okay?” His voice was dangerously low, the kind of pitch and tone he usually reserved for when he wore his mask, but there was no finger on the trigger of his quad blasters, just the wetness of his eyes and the intensity of his gaze. “No matter what anyone says. _Including_ yourself.”

She stared back, standing up slowly; he followed her inch by inch. “I’m far beyond letting anyone tell me who or what I am. So you take your self-hatred for what you’ve done and what you didn’t do, and keep it to yourself, Quill. When you stop by the nearest planet to pick up supplies, I suggest you drop me off. This is no longer a ride I want to be on.”

* * *

The closest planet they came across was like many others they’d been on before - nondescript in every shape and form, lacking distinguishing features or unique characteristics that would make it any more memorable than the last. For Rocket, all he wanted whenever they touched down somewhere new was a junkyard and a bar, preferably within spitting distance of one another so he could walk in sober and stumble out drunk.

Upon returning to their landing site an hour after they’d first arrived, he apparently came back just in time to see Nebula stomp her way down the Benatar’s ramp and out the loading bay, snarling at the nearest attendant who had gingerly approached, wondering if Peter needed any help with the engine. Peter was stood by the nose of the ship, running his fingers through his hair agitatedly, but made no move to follow her. “She’ll be back,” he was saying to a concerned-looking Drax and Mantis by the time Rocket joined them. “Look, Rocket came back and he talks about leavin’ all the time!”

Rocket fixed him with a long, haunted stare. “Don’t even joke about that, Quill.” Peter’s face crumpled. Rocket turned and made his way up the stepladder and directly into the ship’s engine, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. It was hard for anyone to look anyone else in the face these days, but Peter was especially difficult to take, Nebula even more so for how numb she seemed to be.

He poked around aimlessly for a few minutes, trying to find the cause of their latest ship-related issue. If it wasn’t the computer system, it was the pipes, or it was the engine, or it was the fact that the Benatar was a piece of crap when they got it and was still a piece of crap now. Rocket huffed impatiently, nudging the casing with his foot. “C’mon,” he grumbled. “What kinda engineer would I be if I can’t fix the damn engine?” Another swift kick, harder this time, but all it resulted in was a stubbed toe and a bruised ego. It was a testament to how distracted Peter was that he didn’t even bother chastising Rocket for it, instead disappearing back inside the ship with the others in tow.

Another low growl, and Rocket sat back on his haunches defeatedly, pushing his toolbox aside for the time being. He leaned forward, resting his head in his paws, pulling at the bits of fur that seemed to be falling out of his temples in worryingly large patches, the grooves where his claws had dug near-permanent welts into his cheeks. “I am Groot?”

Rocket lifted his head to see Groot approaching him apprehensively, still clutching his beloved handheld _Defender_ in one hand, the other outstretched in Rocket’s direction. “What d’ya think? We shoulda gotten rid of this rustbucket a long time ago.”

“I am Groot,” he protested, climbing up to sit beside him, his legs swinging over the edge of the ship’s hood. “I am Groot.”

“Yeah, well, nothing’s _ever_ gone right for us, why should it start now?” Rocket let out a hysterical laugh. “Out of the last five jobs we had, two were a complete and utter failure, and one shorted us on units. All ‘cos Quill’s too busy dragging us around the galaxy to find her. ‘Cept that wasn’t her. That wasn’t...that wasn’t _our_ Gamora. That was _a_ Gamora. And I dunno if she wants to be ours, or if she _can_ be in the first place. But he’s done it, Groot. He’s gone and lost his mind, and now _we’re_ the ones who gotta pay for it.” The engine sparked pathetically. “More like _not_ get paid for it.”

“I am Groot.” They both fell silent, Groot politely ignoring the loud, shaky breath Rocket took that certainly wasn’t related to the engine issue. Then, Groot began to hum. It sounded a little thin and reedy in his voice - “tree puberty”, as Peter had so delicately once put it, looked and sounded a lot like human puberty - but it was instantly recognizable.

“Don’t - don’t do that, man,” Rocket said half-heartedly. “We haven’t heard that since you were no bigger than a boot.”

“I am Groot,” he shrugged. He still remembered every note, let it linger in his head sometimes when he needed it most; only he remembered it in her voice, heard the joy when she first remembered the lullaby her parents had sung to her as a baby, how she sang it to him when he was fussy or scared or just wanted to keep her by his bedside for a few more minutes. He’d grown out of it eventually, scoffing at everything and everyone around him like a typical stubborn adolescent, but now he longed for it again, even if just for one more time. “I am Groot?”

“Nah, I don’t think she would’ve known how to fix this.” Rocket twisted a series of wires around his finger, nearly slicing through them with his claw in his absentmindedness. He quickly withdrew his paw before it could happen. “Hell, I’d ask Nebula if she wasn’t in such a...Nebula mood.”

He glanced around the hangar where they’d parked, how very average it all seemed - sky-high ceiling heights, long stretches of metal and concrete as far as the eye could see, and people of all kinds milling about, fawning over a cool ship someone had brought in or arguing over how to best fix the reason they’d landed here in the first place. They had been in a place very similar to this the first time she asked him if she could help, mere weeks after the Guardians had officially formed, with everyone still cautious and nervous and new to existing alongside other people.

“I spent years helping Nebula with her implants,” she had said with her arms folded across her chest, watching him yank at the wires fruitlessly. “Let me take a look.”

“Ship mechanics and implants ain’t the same thing,” Rocket had retorted without sparing her a glance. “Look, I’m sure you were a big ol’ help to your wacko sister, but leave the engineering to me. You go...swing your sword at somethin’ or whatever.”

“You insult me by insinuating I’m only useful in a fight.” The cadence of her voice had been even, measured, but there was a hint of danger to it that gave Rocket the impression he wasn’t going to win this one. “I’ve also shadowed some of the best engineers in the galaxy and made countless minor repairs before. At least let me watch so I can learn. No one ever gets anything done just standing by.”

Rocket had sighed, moving aside so she had room to hover over him, her gaze intensely focused on the meticulousness of his work. “Is that what you told yourself when you first went after the Orb?”

“Yes.” The quickness, the sureness, even, of her reply had surprised him. “I spent years watching Thanos destroy homes, destroy families. Knowing his plans for the Stone, I couldn’t watch any longer.”

“But your sister could? She’s a real piece of work.”

“Watch yourself, Rocket.” She had reached out, gripped his tiny wrist with her long, battle-calloused fingers far too tightly. “My sister and I, we’re like you. Built for someone else’s purpose. Taken apart to fulfill another’s desires. Her lack of morality may disappoint me, but I can’t deny that not too long ago, I still felt the same way.”

He had yanked his arm out of her grasp, shaking it, mulling over her words. “So what changed? Why did _you_ turn your back on the big purple man, and not her?”

“It could be _anything_ that kept her from doing so - disposition, personality, personal traumas…” She had trailed off, tapping one fingernail gently on the glint of silver in her cheekbone, a particular piece that outlined the sharp planes of her bone structure a bit too well. “...repeated body mutilation and a craving for validation that will never come would break anyone’s spirits. You know that as well as we do.”

Rocket had cleared his throat, turned his attention back to the work at hand. “Alright, honesty hour’s over. You gonna pick up a wrench of your own or what?”

“I am Groot.” Groot’s voice brought Rocket back to the present, his chest aching with something he could identify, but wanted to deny. Melancholic longing had always been part of his life, but never his vocabulary, and he wasn’t about to start now. He didn’t want to sound like one of the morose love songs Peter had taken to playing on the ship through to the early hours in the morning. He didn’t want to wake up crying, chest heaving, gasping for air, the way Peter did sometimes, the way they all pretended he didn’t do, for the sake of what was left of his dignity. “I am Groot?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Stop starin’ at me, you’re making me nervous,” Rocket spat, his tone harsher than intended. His ears drooped when Groot’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. Groot hopped back down onto the stepladder and started walking back to head inside the ship, his footsteps heavier than they had been when he first came out. “Wait, Groot...look, we’re all on edge, I don’t mean to be a dick about it. C’mere, let me show you how this junkpile works.”

Groot sighed, his shoulders heaving, and he went back into the ship without another backward glance. Rocket stared after him, his chin dropping to his chest as he hung his head. He could vaguely hear Peter and Drax arguing inside, with Mantis trying her best to moderate without using her powers, something Peter had sorely been against as of late, something about not wanting to numb himself to how much everything hurt (Rocket hadn’t really been paying attention, mostly because it hit too close to home).

“I am Groot.” Rocket lifted his head to see Groot walking back up to join him. Instead of carrying his video game, he was carrying a familiar-looking book, one that was dusty from lack of use, its spine still in perfect condition. He held it up to Rocket in a sort of peace offering, smiling tentatively. Rocket’s breath shook as he accepted it, brushing away the residue so the title could be read: _Engineering Basics, Volume XI: Spacecraft_.

“I can’t tell this is a gift or an insult,” she had said dubiously when Rocket first gave it to her. It had been two months since their encounter with Ego, and everyone was finally starting to feel more settled, more at peace with who they were and who they were with.

“You said you wanted to learn,” Rocket had protested. “Look, I spent a whole fifteen units on this!” She had fixed him with a look. “Okay, so I found it at yesterday’s trading post, the attendant said it was a gift from his parents, never used, wanted to get it off his hands. Isn’t it the thought that counts or some crap?”

She had laughed, an unexpectedly soft, musical sound that made Rocket’s ears perk up. “If you say so, Rocket. And thank you. I’m not sure when I’ll have the time with everything that’s going on right now, but I’ll keep it in mind.”

“I am Groot,” he said gently, now placing a hand on Rocket’s.

Rocket inhaled. “Guess she never got around to it. Thing’s never even been opened!”

“I am Groot,” he said, looking pensive. Groot looked younger then, a little bit more like his toddler self, his eyes round and liquid and perpetually in a state of nervous, uncertain energy. The lullaby continued to play in his head; he felt the ghost of a slightly calloused hand cup his cheek as if to say hello, goodnight, goodbye.

Nodding slowly, Rocket opened the book, running his paws over the glossy pages that were otherwise untouched. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I miss her, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just watched the movie yesterday and I have to get on a plane tomorrow but I just really, _really_ needed to get some feelings out! This is more of a character relationship study than a strict ["The Search For Gamora"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_III:_The_Search_for_Spock) fic, mostly because I needed a place to explore all the little headcanons I have about her relationships with each Guardian. And I know Thor was there with them at the end, but as much as I adore him, I wanted to strictly keep the focus on the team, so let's just say he left for a hot minute to check in with Valkyrie in New Asgard or something.
> 
> This fic probably exists in a dozen other forms already but regardless, this was oddly therapeutic to write and I hope you enjoyed it all the same. You can read this fic on [tumblr](https://bevioletskies.tumblr.com/post/184515622309/bring-it-on-home-to-me-15) if you'd like! Thanks so much for reading, comments and kudos would be much appreciated, and see you next time :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of blood and unnamed character deaths.

Mantis woke to a dull throbbing in her forehead, a _thu-thump_ that sounded more like an irregular heartbeat than the usual background noise of the Benatar’s engine’s rumbles and groans. It was an unfortunate common occurrence for her, the faint sounds of other people’s worries and fears radiating off them like a siren, calling out for someone to listen. Now, living in close quarters with teammates who constantly fretted and kept it all to themselves, the sirens were more like full-on klaxons blaring in her brain.

When she was growing up under the too-watchful eye of Peter’s father, it hadn’t been so terrible in that respect - he was a man of single-minded purpose, his arrogance so excessive that his narcissism far outweighed his doubt. His feelings, his emotions, had come second to all the things he’d demanded of her, and it was far easier to shut out one person than another five. Mantis had never understood the full spectrum of the emotional experience until meeting the other Guardians.

She tiptoed gingerly out of her bunk and into the tiny kitchenette, pouring herself a glass of water and sitting down at the table. Peter and Nebula had laid out scraps of reports and blurry photos all over its surface, still attempting to work together after the last half-dozen temper tantrums they’d had (Peter moreso than Nebula, not that anyone was counting). “We’re gettin’ closer,” Peter would say every morning during their team discussions, having long abandoned other jobs in favor of this one. Rocket would then quip that they weren’t, Drax would have some sort of blunt response, and Nebula would roll her eyes while Groot adamantly continued staring at his game console screen, trying and failing to not get his hopes up. Mantis would be sitting further away, observing, feeling completely and utterly useless.

“You’re not useless, Mantis.” It was three months after Mantis had joined the Guardians, and they had returned to their ship after a semi-successful job where their worst injury was Rocket’s singed whiskers and Peter’s bruised ego. She had sat down beside Mantis, who was sulking quietly by the vantage window. The softness in her voice always betrayed the sharpness of her expression. “I don’t need your powers to tell that that’s how you feel right now.”

“I wish I was more like you,” Mantis had sighed. “Brave...and strong. But I do not know if I want to fight.”

“Then don’t,” she had said simply. “Your life is yours now. Your purpose is _your_ choice.”

“I suppose when you put it like that...I _have_ never felt so free.” Mantis had hummed, some song that Peter had played once that had been stuck in her head ever since, drowning out the noise that had otherwise taken permanent residence in her head.

Her face had softened. “Neither have I. Though I’ll spend the rest of my life burdened with knowing what I’ve done when I was with Thanos. What I didn’t do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t stop him, I didn’t escape him until it was almost too late. I didn’t realize the extent of what he’d been doing to my sister until the damage to our relationship, to Nebula _herself_ , was beyond repair.” She had shuddered, her hand moving to a specific pocket on her utility belt, drawing out a switchblade embedded with some sort of red jewels. Slowly, she had begun to spin it, flipping it deftly like she’d clearly done so many times before. “I imagine you felt similarly about Ego.”

“I do not know how I feel about _anything_ sometimes,” Mantis had admitted. “But I _do_ know that I wish I had met all of you earlier.”

“I don’t think you would’ve liked us earlier,” she had replied, her tone dry. Then, her head had dipped downward, eyes fixated on her lap. The switchblade came to a stop. “I know _I_ didn’t.”

Mantis had watched her, pensive. “Do you like yourself now?”

Gamora had let out a low chuckle; the sound had haunted Mantis then, and it spoke to her now. “I hope that someday, I will.”

Mantis was drawn out of her memory by the sound of an awkward, distinctive cough behind her. She turned to see Drax stood by the freezer unit, a half-eaten rations packet poorly hidden behind his back. “Drax?”

“I was hungry,” he said, defending himself against absolutely nothing of consequence. “Why are you awake?”

“Sleep escapes me sometimes,” she replied, gesturing for him to join her at the table. He sat across from her, reluctantly putting the rations packet on its surface, knowing he was going to get an earful from Peter about it in the morning (“Food is expensive, Drax! You wanna see our bank account again, or do you wanna maybe _not_ get the late-night munchies for once?”). “Everyone gets louder and louder the closer we get to...wherever Peter thinks she is.”

“We have been having discussions at the same volume the whole time,” Drax protested.

“I mean in here.” Mantis tapped a finger against her temples, right below the base of her antennae. “Nebula is angrier than ever. Peter has never felt so sad. They are very desperate. We are _all_ very desperate.”

Drax elected not to respond right away, instead peeling back the packet so he could dig to the bottom, popping another bite or two into his mouth and chewing slowly without really tasting anything. He knew the others thought more highly of him than anyone but his family had ever done before, but still, he knew they also mostly saw him as oblivious, simple-minded Drax - the one they could count on in a battle, but not in a war. He was a warrior, not a tactician, a body, not a brain. His grief wasn’t always as obvious to the others, either; it wasn’t like Nebula’s scowls or Peter’s tears, Rocket’s drooping whiskers or Groot’s trembling mouth. It was quieter, far quieter than his combative cries during a fight or his harsh tones during an argument. It was almost silent. Most times, Mantis was the only one who could hear him.

“So desperate that we hang onto the mere existence of a woman who is not the one we know,” Drax said hollowly, setting the packet back down. “I have made peace with the death of my wife and daughter. I think it’s time for Quill and Nebula to make peace with hers.”

“How could you say that?” Mantis leapt to her feet, knocking over her water glass in the process; her eyes barely glanced over as it went splashing everywhere, dripping all over the floor. “We have encountered her three times since she ran away, and she has let us get closer each time. Maybe she is not the one we know, but she wants to trust us. I know that. I can _feel_ that. We cannot just...give up!”

“We are working ourselves into a sickness, a disease. She would not want us to mourn her forever,” he insisted. “It is not the warrior way.”

“But she was not _just_ a warrior, and neither are you,” she retorted, her lip curling in a childish manner. “She only died a few months ago. How long have you had to mourn your wife and daughter?”

“Too long.” Mantis froze, her eyes widening in horror in realization of what she’d said, of how easy it had been for him to answer her. She was hardly one to get angry at the others, but somehow, Drax was always the one who got to her more than anyone else. Whether it was a sign of their closeness or their wildly different temperaments, she couldn’t be sure.

She exhaled. “We deserve more time to look for her than you might think. Maybe someday, she will want to stay with us, and she can get to know everyone all over again. I think Peter and Nebula really, _really_ need it. We _all_ do.”

Drax got to his feet, moving to dispose of the empty packet, pointedly keeping his back to her. “Sleep well, Mantis.” He left before she had time to reply, weaving his way through the Benatar’s damp corridor and back to his bed, where he knew he wouldn’t be able to take his own advice.

* * *

Another two days passed before they were remotely close to where they were trying to be, a location that Peter refused to disclose to the others for reasons unknown. He and Nebula had reached the acceptance stage in their relationship, as in they accepted each other’s presence reluctantly and begrudgingly. Seeing them successfully coordinate their efforts was strangely disturbing to everyone else.

“I still don’t trust her,” Drax murmured to Peter after their usual morning discussion, watching Nebula reluctantly follow Mantis through to the back of the ship for lack of something else to do. “She has tried to kill us on multiple occasions.”

“Hey, look, Nebula’s not my favorite person either, but she’s different now,” Peter protested, furrowing his brow. “She only _sometimes_ threatens to maim me these days. Plus, after all that stuff she did to help save the universe, we gotta cut her some slack. She’s not the bad guy anymore. She’s one of us.”

“I suppose she has become more agreeable, yes,” Drax relented, nodding. “But do not mistake her presence for her allegiance, Quill. She is merely here for her sister, and when she realizes that that woman isn’t her - ”

“ _Don’t_ \- ” Peter’s finger was on the trigger of his quad blaster before Drax could get his next word out, though he didn’t draw his weapon. His breath was ragged between his teeth. “Don’t you dare, alright? Don’t you say nothin’ like that.”

“Then I have nothing more to say,” Drax said quietly, promptly turning and walking away.

On the other side of the ship, Mantis and Nebula were sat by the window, Groot’s favorite spot to sit and watch the stars go by when he was younger. The two of them had an odd relationship, knowing the absolute least about each other of all the Guardians, and yet always feeling a vague sense of apprehension in the other’s presence. They both knew what the other was capable of, the physical and psychological damage they could inflict upon one another, and that was all it took for them to maintain their distance. Still, between the loudness of everyone else’s personalities, they were somehow the quietest of them all, and sometimes, silence was exactly what they needed.

“What happened when you were with your past self?” Silence was not a particularly long-term commitment for Mantis. Nebula turned to shoot her a dirty look, but Mantis returned it with a steely gaze of her own.

Sighing, Nebula brought one knee up to her chest so she could rest her arm. “If you think I’m going to tell you what it was like to look into my own eyes from nine years ago, you’ve sorely misinterpreted our relationship.”

Mantis looked away. “After you left to kill Thanos...sometimes, she would find it very hard to talk about you. But other times, she would tell me stories about how you grew up together.”

“Is that what she called it?” Nebula said, her voice even raspier than usual. “Growing up together? As if we lived in a house and went to school and lived a perfectly ordinary life?”

“She said she always wanted to understand you,” Mantis mused. “But she did not know where to start.”

Nebula scoffed. “Understand me? My sister seems to have spent far more time getting to know _you_ than she ever did with me. It was only in the end that she...that we…” She trailed off, unusually uncertain of what to say.

“Once she started to trust me, she was very helpful in making me feel like I belonged.” Mantis smiled bemusedly, her eyes glazing over, lost in her own memories. “Before becoming a Guardian, I did not think I belonged anywhere but on Ego, serving my master for the rest of my life. She made me see that I could be more, and that we had more in common than we thought.” Her gaze went back to Nebula’s face; it startled Nebula then how similar their dark, inky eyes looked in a certain light. “That includes you, too.”

“What could we possibly have in common?”

Mantis brightened, much to Nebula’s dismay. “Oh, many things! We were all taken as children by a powerful man who wanted us to be servants instead of companions. We felt isolated and controlled and alone. We - ”

“Do stop talking.” Nebula clapped her hand down firmly on top of Mantis’s, pinning it to Mantis’s leg. Mantis jumped but didn’t dare move otherwise. “I can only listen to your voice for so long.”

Mantis held her breath for a moment, then slowly, carefully, turned her hand over, gently prying Nebula’s fingers open so she could interlace them with her own. Nebula flinched. Then, she sighed, her shoulders dropping, and they both turned their gaze to the stars.

Back in the bunks, Drax was laid on his back on his comically small bed, staring up at the ceiling, bits of it eroded away from leak damage and other mishaps that Peter claimed gave the Benatar “character”. In the water stain, he could almost see the silhouette of a face, some vague side profile of a person who, if he squinted enough, reminded him of the slope of his wife’s nose, the strength of her chin, the curve of her jawline.

“Do you think of them?” It had been a mission like any other, some trafficking situation gone wrong that the Guardians had been called to, and the two of them were entrusted with dealing with the enemies on the ground, being the most skilled in close combat. The fight was over now, and they were the only ones left standing. Drax had been bent over at the waist while trying to catch his breath; she had kneeled on the ground beside a pile of bodies she’d created, staring at them in a near trance.

Drax had turned to look at her; she hadn’t looked back. “Of who?”

“Your wife and daughter.”

His answer had been immediate. “Always.”

She had smiled sadly, drawing a cloth from her utility belt to wipe away the blood on her sword. Her back had still remained to him. “Peter tells me stories about his mother almost every night before we go to bed. Yet I...I forget my parents’ names sometimes. I forget their laughs, their smiles.”

“This is an odd time and place to be having this conversation,” Drax had pointed out, though not unkindly.

“It makes sense to me.” She had drawn to her full height, storing away both the cloth and her sword, finally turning to face him. There was a splatter of blood across her torso and face, the silver in her cheekbones glinting through it like it was just another layer of warpaint. “Every time I look at all the death I’ve left behind, I think of them. I wonder what they would think of me if they saw who I was, what I’ve become. Do you not do the same?”

“I come from a race of fighters,” he had said, though his answer hadn’t been so quick this time. “War is our norm.”

She had hummed in response, gesturing for him to follow her back to the ship, where the others were waiting. “I’ve been responsible for more deaths than the ones committed by my own hand.”

He had fallen silent, unsure of what to say, thinking back to the very first time they had come face-to-face, her blade to his throat, then his hand wrapped around hers. “You are not the one to blame for my family’s deaths. That was Ronan and Thanos, but it was not you. Never you.” When she didn’t respond, he had grabbed her by the wrist, pulling firmly so she would turn and meet his eyes. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears, though still sparked with the defiance that every last person in the galaxy had come to know so well. Then, he had said, quite simply, “As I’ve said before - you are not my enemy, Gamora. You are my friend.”

The sound of the Benatar’s unceremoniously messy landing - more like _crash_ ing - pulled Drax out of his dreamlike state. He got to his feet and ran out to join the others in the cockpit, pausing when he saw everyone frozen in their seats, staring out the front window. Only Peter remained emotionally unmoved, his jaw clenched. After all, he was the only one who had known their destination.

The Guardians found themselves looking at the hollowed-out husk of a place that never _had_ glory days, a place still struggling to rebuild after its destruction five years ago, smoke curling around its borders like it was threatening to swallow it whole. Peter cleared his throat. “Well, this was the last place she was spotted. Welcome back to Knowhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, sorry about this being late! I left on vacation for a week the day after posting the first part and thought I would only need a week to write and edit this part, but I was sick on my flight home and had a bunch of other stuff to catch up on. I hope you enjoyed regardless!
> 
> Secondly, this part was a little bit harder for me to write, as I usually explore Drax's character and relationships with others the least, but it was a fun little exercise in exploring these characters I adore so much! And wishful thinking, but I really want Mantis and Gamora to (somehow) have a good friendship going on in _Vol. 3_.
> 
> The next part will be posted next Friday - I'm halfway-ish through writing it so far. You can read this fic on [tumblr](https://bevioletskies.tumblr.com/post/184906197094/bring-it-on-home-to-me-25) if you'd like! Thanks so much for reading, comments and kudos would be much appreciated, and see you next time :)


	3. Chapter 3

Peter stared down the bottom of his third bottle in the last hour, slumped over the railing that was somewhat familiar to him, though not quite the same one he knew. He’d long given up the pretense of being the confident, boastful, larger-than-life “Star-Lord” persona, or at least he had two bottles ago. The others could still be heard above all the ruckus of the casino that was still every bit as illegal as its previous iteration, Rocket’s gleeful cackle and Drax’s uproarious laugh especially carrying through the thin sheet metal walls. Peter knew that, for once, he was the buzzkill of the group, lurking outside the bar like the wallflower he’d never been, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“We should go to Knowhere for our anniversary,” he had said to her one evening. They were lying in bed, warm and cozy and content, sifting through the team finances together. It wasn’t a particularly romantic activity, but they both found that any task, no matter how mundane, was best done in the other’s company.

She had blanched, setting down the holo-tablet to fix him with her usual dubious stare. “Why? Knowhere is filthy, both morally _and_ literally.”

“Well, yeah, but it was where we had our first dance...sorta.” At her unimpressed look, he had added, “Okay, so technically our first dance was during that mission with the, uh, that consulate thing - ”

“Diplomats, Peter,” she had sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, same thing. Anyway, I guess I just always think it was Knowhere ‘cos it’s where we first got to _really_ know each other. That you weren’t just a crazy assassin and I wasn’t just a handsome rogue - ”

“An acceptably attractive, morally ambiguous, and _wholly_ dishonorable thief,” she had corrected him without missing a beat, shooting him a teasing grin. “And why do you put so much weight on anniversaries? They’re only superficially more significant than any other day of the year.”

“I dunno, maybe it’s a Terran thing.” He had pulled her in closer, gently lowered her head down over his heart, raking his fingers through her hair. She had instantly settled in, her eyes fluttering shut, enjoying the sensation of his touch. “My mom liked anniversaries. She said she liked any excuse to celebrate something or someone - birthdays, weddings, adoptions, jobs...that it meant that we made it. That something we had, something we thought was worth having, was meant to last.”

She had hummed, placing one hand on the other side of Peter’s chest so she could feel it rise with every breath he took. “It’s a lovely sentiment, actually. One that I can agree with. Your mother was an insightful woman.”

“She would’ve loved you.” He had tilted his chin downward somewhat so he could look at her resting peacefully on his chest, their legs intertwined. She had been wearing his hoodie and smelled of his cologne because of it, interlaced with the gentle and surprising sweetness of her shampoo. There had been a bandage on her thumb where she’d cut it during a mission two days ago when she was hastily trying to cut a rope that had wrapped itself around Groot’s leg while they were trying to get away from the bad guy of the week. The corners of her mouth had been turned up very slightly, her shoulders rising and falling as she drifted off to sleep. “ _I_ love you, Gamora. More than anything.”

She had chuckled, though her eyes remained closed. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.” His answer had been immediate.

She had patted his chest in response, once, twice, then her hand came to a stop. Her smile widened. “I love you, too.”

“You are the one who tried to put his hands on me.”

Peter jumped, turning and knocking over the bottles at his feet in his haste. His mouth fell open rather comically at the sight before him, the sight he’d been chasing for months now, the sight he couldn’t believe he was seeing. “I...uh, I’m, uh - ”

“My sister said you had a talent for talking too much. I’m not sure I see it.” She folded her arms across her chest, looking at him expectantly. Everything about her looked identical to how she’d looked on the day they met - her outfit, the length and style of her hair, right down to the stern scowl that he used to think was the only expression she was capable of. It made his chest ache. “Your persistence is admirable, I’ll give you that much. But I am not the one you know.”

“Well, I... _we_...think you’re on your way,” Peter stammered, bending to set down his bottle beside the others. “Nebula told us you still turned on Thanos in the end to help her out, and I saw you jump into the fight against him. Seems like somethin’ you’ll _always_ do, no matter what universe or timeline or whatever you’re in.”

She faltered, the tightness of her mouth slacking somewhat, her brow furrowing into something more like worry than anger. Then, she slowly walked over to stand beside him at the railing, an unsettling sense of deja vu washing over him as he turned to watch her. “Both of you speak of me and _to_ me as if I’m a good person. As if I haven’t committed horrible, _unspeakable_ acts of terror and violence. I know what my father has done. I know what I’m capable of. And yet, my sister tells me I have the capacity to...to have friends? To have a lover? To be...to be part of a family?” Her voice cracked.

“You do,” he said earnestly. “Hell, _you_ were the one who started this whole thing to begin with. The Guardians? We never would’ve happened if you hadn’t been trying to get the Orb away from Ronan. Either I would’ve sold it to the Broker and been on my way, or you would’ve stolen it and helped Ronan destroy Xandar. You said it yourself - you couldn’t stand by and let it happen.”

“Stop speaking of her as if she’s me,” she said through clenched teeth, refusing to meet his eyes. “I am not the one you lost.”

“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up in surrender, taking one step back to give her room to breathe. “Just...please don’t run away this time. We’ve been chasin’ you around the galaxy for months - ”

“I’ve noticed.”

“ - and we’re kinda running low on fuel. And funds. And food. Just, y’know, everything.” He softened. “Look, I get it. You don’t know me, you don’t care about staying for me. But you know your sister. Would you stay for her? At least...talk to her?”

Gamora slowly turned on her heel to direct her gaze inside the casino, eyes roaming across the rowdy scene before them, the sounds barely muffled by the poorly insulated walls. The others were having a rare moment of levity together at the betting tables, Rocket and Groot jumping enthusiastically up and down as they beat Drax at yet another hand, while Mantis was watching with a confused, but entertained smile. Nebula was sat at the bar by herself, staring down the bottom of a shot glass like it had personally wronged her. “I saved her.”

“Yeah. A bunch of times, actually. And you’ve saved me, too. _And_ everyone else.”

She turned back to properly look at him for the first time. “When?”

“Well, we’ve been on dozens of jobs together, you really want me to describe them all?” he chuckled.

“No. I have a feeling once you start, you’ll never stop.” A smirk then formed on her face, something so similar to the smile she often wore around him whenever he was being...well, _himself_ \- that he felt a sharp pang in his chest to accompany the dull ache. Her expression then fell back into something far more forlorn. “I’ve spent these last months trying to figure out how to live in a universe that I don’t belong to. With my father and sister dead, with my purpose gone, with my identity belonging to another, I...I’m lost, Quill.”

“You have a place with us if you want it,” he promised, shivering at the sound of his name in her mouth. “And I’m thinking you do, since _you_ came to _me_. I gotta ask, though - why _did_ you come to me? Why not your sister?”

She visibly swallowed. “She isn’t the one _I_ know. She killed her past self, the one that belonged to my timeline, to save my life. I don’t know how to understand her, I don’t know how to be the one that she needs, I don’t know what or _who_ she needs. At least with you...we have no false pretense of me resembling the one you loved.”

“But you do. I…” He inhaled sharply, his eyes burning with unshed tears. “I look at you, and all I see is her when we first met, god, _nine_ years ago now. I look at you standing here, and I remember the last time we were on Knowhere, her telling me how she couldn’t let Ronan or Thanos destroy planets, me telling her about the night my mom died. And when Nebula told me that you turned on Thanos and saved her with no hesitation, that’s... _that’s_ the woman I know. The one I love.”

She went silent for a moment, turning back toward the stars, her eyes squeezing shut so she could think. “Sometimes...I wish I _was_ her. It sounds like she was loved.”

“She was,” Peter said fiercely. “And not just by me and Nebula. The _whole_ team, every last one of ‘em. I got a feeling, if you stay, make your new home with us...we’ll love you, too.”

“You make it sound as if I’m a lesser version of her. A replacement.”

“No, that’s not - ”

“But if you want to know why I stopped running away...I’m tired, Quill. I’m tired of not knowing what to do next.” Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned against the railing, her elbows barely keeping herself upright. “And though I have no interest in becoming a project for you and your friends, the temptation to at least...try to find my place among you is too strong to resist. Besides, I have nothing left to lose. Nothing at all.”

He could almost audibly hear his own heart break at her admission. “I’m sorry. About your timeline bein’ all messed up, about losin’ all those people you cared about...”

“Thanos is not my father,” she said darkly. “Nebula, though...this one said we were sisters. Friends.”

“You were. But you should really talk to _her_ about that stuff, not me. Not my place to say nothin’.” Peter nodded toward the direction of the door. “You think you’re ready?”

“I need a moment. I’m not sure what to say,” she admitted, moving to sit down with her back against the railing. He automatically followed suit, sitting a polite distance away from her. They waited in silence for a few minutes, the only soundtrack accompanying them being the awful bass-heavy EDM pounding away at the bar and the raucous cries from its patrons, getting louder and louder with every sip they took. Peter was itching to reach for his Zune, to see if maybe a song, _any_ song, would somehow bring back her memories, as if she had simply lost them rather than not having them in the first place. “Nebula also said you and I were together for four years.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we were.” Peter smiled sadly. “Damn good four years, too.”

“What was it like?” He looked at her incredulously; she shot him a defensive look in return. “This isn’t just small talk, Quill. I need to know what my other self experienced, what she valued, if I’m going to have a productive conversation with my sister.”

“Su-u-ure,” he drawled, smirking. “I got a bunch of stories if you’ve got some time.”

“Not _that_ much,” she retorted. Regardless, she turned toward him so their faces were closer, her eyes fixated intently on his. He found himself momentarily lost in their familiarity, though they lacked the warmth he had grown so accustomed to. “Tell me.”

* * *

It had been fourteen hours since Yondu’s ashes were scattered across the expanse of space, and Peter finally found himself stirring awake in his bed on the Quadrant (Kraglin had spoken of a scrapyard he knew of on a nearby planet where they could string together a new ship, but Peter was in no mood to brainstorm new names for the time being), groggy from having slept so fitfully for so long. He groaned, flopping back into his sea of flattened pillows to reject the very concept of a new day. Then, his chest tightened in remembrance of everything that had occurred in the last week, of what had happened just last night. He let out a sudden pained cry.

“Peter? Peter!” She burst through the door and was by his side before he even registered her presence, pulling him up into a seated position with his back against the headboard. “I heard you yelling, are you hurt?”

“No,” he sighed, his breath coming out ragged. “I just remembered where I was, that’s all. Don’t mean to disturb you.”

“Not at all,” she said, moving back a little so he had room to exhale. “You have every right to be disoriented right now, Peter, it’s okay. We’ll take some time off before we get back to work. I think we could _all_ use a break. Besides, we need to figure out how Mantis fits in here. She needs guidance.”

“I think you’d be good for that,” he said, lifting his chin to look at her. His breath slowly came back to him. “Better you than Drax.”

“I agree,” she said dryly, rubbing his shoulder to further calm him down. “Did you at least sleep through the night? I didn’t hear you get up once.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” He put his hand over hers. “Hey, how are _you_ holding up? Now that Nebula’s...gone again.”

“I think we’re on our way to something. Friendship, maybe,” she replied, looking lost in thought. “It’s not something I ever thought was possible, but...I have hope.”

“That’s great!” he exclaimed, brightening. “I mean, she still scares the crap outta me, but you both deserve a win. You really do.”

She nodded slowly. “Peter...I’m sorry about Yondu. I know how much he meant to you. And I shouldn’t have pushed you to have a relationship with your father, only to turn it around the second we arrived - ”

“Hey, no, you were right, okay? Your instincts were dead-on, as always,” he promised, squeezing her hand. “ _I’m_ sorry for losin’ it on you instead of hearing you out. We’re both stubborn as hell, not exactly the best foundation for a relationship - ”

“Relationship?” she interrupted with a teasing smile.

He blinked bewilderedly. “Yeah, last night when you said - ”

“I know what I said.” She moved closer, so close that their foreheads touched. His breath trembled for an entirely different reason; they hadn’t been this physically close since their near first kiss on Knowhere. “And I stand by what I said. But...you’re right. I think both of us could be more patient with each other...with ourselves. We take this slow, or not at all.”

“Yeah, that’s...that’s fair.” He then smirked, something mischievous and warm and already so familiar to her that she couldn’t help but smile in return. “But, uh, how slow are we talkin’?”

She hummed, then leaned in to press a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth, so brief that he barely had time to reciprocate. He let out a startled laugh, watching in mild disappointment as she pulled away and got to her feet. “Mantis is making breakfast for all of us to celebrate her first day as a Guardian. I can already tell you it smells terrible, but I suggest we both eat it for her sake.”

“Hey, hey, wait - ” Peter got out of bed and reached for her hand, pulling her front flush against his. He gently cupped her jaw in one hand, used the other to run his fingers through her hair, the warmth in his chest growing stronger when she leaned into the touch. “Seriously, I know I _literally_ dance around the subject sometimes, but you gotta tell me if I’m screwin’ up and not doin’ enough to fix it. Relationships are kinda new to me, too, and the last thing I wanna do is mess up what we have. Done enough of that lately, and I don’t wanna let you down.”

“Have you ever known me to hold _anything_ back?” she drawled.

“Right, of course. What am I talking about?” he laughed, leaning down to kiss her, properly this time, feeling her smile against his lips, her arms sliding around his waist to keep them both steady. They held each other for a moment, ignoring the ominous rattles of the Quadrant and the distant arguing of their teammates, their family, before pulling away. “All I’m saying is that I trust you, Gamora. More than anything.”

* * *

“You know…” The surprising gentleness of her voice slowly pulled Peter out of his memory-induced haze. “Nebula told me who I was, what I meant to all of you, but...we never had the chance to talk about what happened in the aftermath. How you felt when you found out. If you trust me...will you trust me enough to tell me? I...I want to know.” Her expression was unusually open, pleading.

He looked away, staring down at his hands in the realization that he’d taken the Zune out of his pocket subconsciously, running his thumb across the front, feeling for the buttons like he had with the Walkman. The Zune was smaller, more touch-sensitive, a little less solid beneath his calloused fingers. “I lost my mom...then my real dad. How else was I s’posed to react when I lost _you_ , too?” He hung his head. “I screwed up, I lost it, I...when Thanos said he ‘had’ to kill you, I…” His breath shook, his throat burned.

“She said...something about the Soul Stone.” Her brow furrowed. “I was sacrificed, wasn’t I?”

He nodded silently. “Nebula didn’t know exactly how Vormir worked until she joined up with the Avengers on Terra, and two of ‘em went and had to do the same thing. One came back without the - ”

“Quill, listen to me,” she interrupted urgently, reaching across to grab his arm, her fingernails digging in deep. “If I was sacrificed for the Soul Stone, it means a piece of my soul - _her_ soul - lives on inside of it. Once Thanos gained control, he would have been able to see her, speak to her. We just need to - ”

“He destroyed ‘em.” Peter’s voice was hollow. “That bastard used the Stones to destroy the Stones. The one that the Avengers used, it was one they took from the past, before you...you…” He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat, unable to choke out the last word.

Her face fell. “So she’s lost, then. Every part of her.”

A harsh noise escaped his throat as if to cover up a poorly-concealed sob. “You don’t gotta rub it in. Believe me, I’ve been thinkin’ about her every damn day.”

She slowly got to her feet, unsure of how to comfort him. Her eyes flickered to something moving in her peripheral vision - Nebula, knocking back another generous swig from a lukewarm bottle while the others continued to gamble away what precious few team savings they had left. She seemed unaware of their presence outside, too fixated on whatever she had right in front of her. Her face was more hardened than ever, but the tremble of her mechanical fingers betrayed her expression. “There are people out there, cosmic forces, who might be able to restore her existence in my physical being. Maybe...maybe _that_ is my ultimate purpose.”

Peter wiped away the silent tears that had rolled down his face, looking up at her in shock. “Wh - what? No, I...you said it yourself, you’re not a replacement, you’re your own person - ”

“Am I, though?” Every syllable of every word she spoke seemed to strike Peter right in the chest. “I was never meant to exist here, Quill. My time displacement has cursed me these last few months, left me wanting for something I could never find. If her soul still exists out there, somewhere, _anywhere_...there’s hope. Possibility. It wouldn’t be a disservice to me if we tried...but it would be a disservice to her if we didn’t.”

“I mean…” He gestured fruitlessly, barely able to pick himself up off the ground. “...I don’t even know where to start.”

“I do.” She looked down at him, her smile soft and sad and just a little bit more than determined. “Have you ever heard of the Sovereign?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The morning-after interlude scene is how I've envisioned Peter and Gamora making things official ever since the first time I watched _Vol. 2_ , but I don't think I've ever actually written it before somehow! Honestly, this chapter could have been incredibly long, had I gone into more of my Peter/Gamora headcanons that I've sprinkled throughout all my other MCU-canon fics and beyond, but there will be space for some of it in the last part, believe me ;)
> 
> The next update will be posted next Friday, and you can read this fic on [tumblr](https://bevioletskies.tumblr.com/post/185118144189/bring-it-on-home-to-me-35) if you'd like! Thanks so much for reading, comments and kudos would be much appreciated, and see you next time :)


	4. Chapter 4

Nebula sank down to the floor to sit cross-legged at the foot of a bed that had only recently become hers, annoyance bubbling in her stomach at the sound of the Guardians loudly speculating out in the common area of the ship. Peter had instructed them all to return to the Benatar and stay there until he came back, and had given no further instructions since. Nebula was in no mood to be in the company of the rest of them, especially since they were all pleasantly drunk off cheap Knowhere alcohol, and had instead retreated to her own bunk.

When it was just her and Rocket, it had been easy to avoid each other in times of heightened emotions. After the rest of them returned, it had become rather claustrophobic. Peter had referred to the Milano as his “bachelor pad”, as it barely had a bunk to spare and a mini-freezer that was mostly used to keep his beer cold. The Benatar, however, was intended for a team, a family, modelled after some aspects of the Milano, but far more spacious in every way. Still, it was hard to go anywhere without running into somebody, something that Nebula absolutely loathed.

“I think I liked this piece of scrap better when it was just you and me,” she had said to Rocket a few nights ago after she had gotten into yet another argument with Peter over directions. Rocket had only shrugged in return as he could no longer agree, not after the deafening five years of silence - none of Peter’s off-key singing, Groot’s video game chirping, Drax’s loud chewing, or Mantis’s saccharine-sweet giggling. It had merely been the sound of Nebula’s fingers tapping impatiently against the console and the sound of Rocket’s tools clicking away diligently at every engineering flaw he could find to distract himself with, and the Benatar had never felt so empty.

The bunk Nebula was now sitting in was a spare one that hadn’t officially belonged to anyone before it became hers, though she wasn’t naive - there was an assortment of objects here and there that suggested it was a hideaway for one particular member of the Guardians who needed her own space at times. A small music box, the only souvenir she’d found at a trading post that originated from her home planet; a spare set of switchblades that had once been polished diligently every day, now dulled and dusty due to the lack of ownership; a stack of books that covered all sorts of topics that would have otherwise been gaps in her knowledge, due to an obvious lack of educational opportunities. There was no doubt that this room had been her sister’s.

Nebula reached for one of the books and cracked it open, not caring for the way the spine protested beneath her fingers. One of the pages had been bent at the corner, indicating that she had stopped here. It was a section on medicine, basic universal remedies that could be used on many different planets without fear of contamination or other adverse effects.

“What did you want to be when you got older?” They were approximately the equivalent of Terran eight- and ten-year-olds, lying on thin woven mats that barely protected their backs from the discomfort of the ground, staring up at the Kitson night sky. It was a “wretched planet” according to Thanos, but he had business with some slippery weapons dealer who was hiding in the casinos. Everyone under his thumb knew that anything less than total annihilation of the entire casino strip itself would be a surprise.

“Why?” Nebula had immediately been suspicious, rolling onto her side so she could properly look at her sister. She had abandoned the double braids she’d worn when Thanos had first taken her, now going for a more practical upknot that kept all of her hair out of her face. It pulled her skin back taut, made the newly implanted silver in her forehead more visible, especially in the moonlight. Still, she looked more whole in comparison, not like pieces of a puzzle that had been haphazardly put back together.

“I just thought we could talk,” she had said defensively. “Father almost never leaves us alone together.”

“But we _aren’t_ alone,” Nebula had pointed out, gesturing further away where a shifty-eyed Chitauri guard was standing with his back to them, probably wishing he was anywhere else but here. “Maybe he’s testing our loyalty. If we try to run - ”

“I used to think about being a doctor.” Gamora had folded her hands neatly over her chest, pointedly ignoring her sister’s usual speculation of Thanos’s motivations. She’d long stopped trying to predict what he wanted, and instead went with whatever would ensure she lived to see another day. “My mother was one of the best healers on my planet. When people were hungry, they would ask her how to make it stop. When they were dizzy because of the bad air, they would ask her what to do to make it go away. And...when people died, they asked her if the pain of losing someone would hurt forever.”

Nebula had been silent for a moment. “I don’t remember my mother.” Her eyes had slid shut; she was starting to feel vaguely nauseous. “I remember almost nothing.”

With her eyes shut, she hadn’t noticed her sister reaching across to press a finger to her brow bone, right where the seam of her newest implant began, stopping just before it reached her eye socket. “Father said our modifications wouldn’t affect our memory.”

“It’s not the - ” Nebula’s eyes had flown open, abruptly slapping her hand out of her face. “I was taken before I was old enough to remember things. And...Father _also_ says the mods will make me stronger. Better.”

“Better than what?”

Nebula had fixed her with a gaze so cold it sent shivers down her metallic spine. “Better than _you_.”

The sudden burst of startled cries coming from the Benatar’s common area pulled a reluctant Nebula to her feet, and she stepped out into the corridor to join the others (if nothing else, she wanted to shut them up). It was only when she reached the cockpit that she stopped dead in her tracks at the sight before her.

Her sister was stood with her back to everyone, staring out the front window wistfully despite them currently having an unimpressive view of Knowhere. She then rotated slowly on her heel to look around at her unfamiliar surroundings, momentarily glancing down at the seat that was hers, almost as if she inherently knew it was where she belonged. Her gaze then went to her sister, and her expression softened into an undeservingly warm smile. “Nebula.”

Nebula’s eyes flickered briefly to the others, who had since calmed down and were also now staring in stunned silence. Peter was understandably the only one who seemed to have adjusted to her presence, now sitting on the armrest of his seat and watching her carefully like he was expecting her to cut and run. “Don’t tell me Quill was the one who managed to lure you here,” she said, her tone lacking the bite it usually had.

“In a way,” she said, taking one tentative step closer. “I was reminded of who I was to you, to _all_ of you. And I remembered something else, something Father told us when - ”

“Even now, with both mine and yours dead, we can never escape thinking of him, can we?” She shook her head, scoffing derisively. “Go on, then. _Do_ tell us what false wisdom he had imposed on you.”

“You’re gonna wanna listen to this, Nebula,” Peter said. His voice was strangely subdued. “It’s a...a _big_ ask. For us _and_ for her.”

Nebula’s expression hardened, though she had to admit (only to herself, that is), she was intrigued. “Fine. What is it?”

* * *

The Benatar was eerily silent upon reaching “cruising altitude”, as Peter often called it for no particular reason, where everyone could step away from the controls and let the ship do the work. No one seemed sure of how to walk around or converse or even breathe with her sitting in her usual spot at the table, twirling her switchblade between her fingers. Her dark eyes roamed across their faces, scoping them out and sizing them up to the expectations Nebula and Peter had set in her mind. She maintained a stoicism in her expression and body language, the way Nebula had remembered from long ago, but her face crumpled into silent devastation when she looked at Peter. Nebula honestly wasn’t sure if she wanted to know why. Nearly everyone left the room soon after, unable to bear the tension in the air.

“You’re different than my Nebula,” she mused, her voice so soft that Nebula wasn’t sure if she had meant to say it out loud. “I’m not sure how, but...you are.”

“We are one and the same, just of a different time, and now, a different universe.” She glanced down at the floor. “Yours said Thanos wouldn’t let her change. There was a time when I thought the same thing.”

“So if she had _more_ time...she would’ve become more like you?” She smiled sadly. “It’s a nice thought, though maybe too optimistic. She was also incredibly - ”

“Murderous?” Nebula interrupted. “As am I.” At her sister’s startled, somewhat uncomfortable laugh, she added, “I could tell you _everything_ she ever felt. Contempt...for our father. Disgust...for our siblings. Uncertainty...about you. Until the end.”

She gestured for Nebula to sit with her, her smile turning into something a little friendlier once she did. Still, Nebula refused to meet her eyes. “Tell me more about you and I.”

“We started off exactly the same. We were taken from our families within months of one another, raised to be siblings because we were closer in age than any other child of Thanos.” The corners of Nebula’s mouth twitched in grim, satisfactory remembrance of how the Black Order had gone down in the final battle - the sound of Glaive’s cries as another’s spear went through him, the devastating shout of Obsidian as he was crushed by a foot twice the size of his entire body, and the silent resignation of both Proxima and Maw when they realized they couldn’t fight their fates. The justice of their deaths, for her, was only overshadowed by watching their father crumble to dust. “It was simple, really. Every time we fought, whoever lost would get a piece of them replaced, made new, made better. And while you craved power, I secretly wanted praise. It was how you became the deadliest woman in the galaxy, and how I became your shadow.”

“It was never about power,” she protested. “It was about survival.”

“No,” Nebula said, her voice low. “You didn’t just survive. You _thrived_ , despite the circumstances. There was no mistaking why Father preferred you over our siblings, over me. Had you decided to take a different path, Xandar would have been destroyed long ago, the Guardians would have never existed, and the universe could have fallen apart long before it did.”

“Quill told me as much,” she murmured. She glanced briefly down the corridor at the door to the bunk she and Peter had shared. Then, she hesitated. “You think I have the capacity to become...what _he_ was?”

“I would hate to see what you could become without your morality. But you’ve proven that in _any_ universe...losing yourself to his ways is no easy feat.” They both went quiet in meditative contemplation. Nebula glanced down at her hand, the one she’d lost, burnt, damaged beyond repair over half a dozen times. It had stopped feeling like it belonged to her a long time ago - a hand was simply just a hand, her legs and arms and fingers and toes were all just attachments, not appendages. By comparison, her sister was far less modified, less scarred. The most prominent of her implants was still those in her skeleton, her skull, peeking out slightly in the markings along her forehead and cheekbones. Nebula, on the other hand, had moments where she couldn’t remember which parts of her were still her.

“So when I defected from Father...what happened to you?”

“I tried to get him to favor me. I tried to be as ruthless as you once were. I tried…” Nebula cleared her throat harshly. “...I tried to kill you, _several_ times. I failed, of course. Yet somehow, despite everything...we found peace. Common ground. And then I left.”

“I couldn’t convince you to stay?” Her face fell.

“You tried. But _I_ was convinced I could stop Thanos on my own. That’s when he captured me, lured you in, and…” Nebula trailed off; the lump in her throat wasn’t going away. It was strange how some parts of her body functioned like a machine, and others still felt so incredibly human. “Rocket and I were the only ones left after the Decimation. He can be a nasty creature, but he proved himself to be...reasonable.”

She smiled ruefully. “It sounds like, at least for a time, that you two were friends.”

Nebula shook her head, adamant. “Friendship is not a word I use lightly. And yet...it would seem you are the exception.”

Wisely, she decided not to reply, and instead leaned back in her seat with a satisfied smile. This time, their silence was comfortable, only broken by the insistent beeping of the Benatar’s malfunctioning radar system as they went on their way.

* * *

Nebula stumbled out of the smoking remains of the escape pod she’d used to, well, _escape_ her previous captors, an astonishingly stupid group of bounty hunters who found her stowed away on a transport ship and thought they could fetch a unit or two after turning her over to whoever happened to be after her that day. It took her a few seconds to even recognize where she was, shielding her eyes from the blinding sun to look up and around at the unusually tall trees that rocketed far past the clouds. Dervani, then, where she and her sister had trained as young warriors. She could work with that.

She rummaged through the wreckage for anything that might benefit her - wires, spare batteries, a scrap of food if she was lucky - before turning and stalking off in the direction of the nearest town. The planet was overrun with lush foliage, practically swallowing up the horizon in every which way, but she was well-versed enough to navigate her way back to civilization, find herself another ship, and with a little luck, be on her way to kill Thanos once more.

It had been two years since she left Quadrant, left her sister and her still-relatively newfound family behind, and yet she felt no closer to accomplishing her goal. She was finding it harder to locate Thanos than she thought, what with Sanctuary being falsely spotted in half a dozen places across the galaxy, and she didn't exactly have the resources to chase him at light speed. Frustration was wearing her thin, but her determination - and anger - was what kept her going.

Her communicator suddenly beeped, a harsh, sharp noise that instantly caused some bird-like creatures to flee the treetops, shrieking in fright. Cursing, Nebula quickly found shelter beneath a large palm plant and pulled the device out of her pocket. “I told you not to contact me for another two days.”

“Hello to you, too,” Gamora drawled. It was a voice call, so Nebula couldn’t see her face, but she could only imagine the sort of smug smirk she was currently wearing. “We’re en route to Naro-Atzia for an extraction job, so I won’t be able to keep in touch for the next week or so.”

“Good,” Nebula shot back. “That means a whole week where I won’t be on the receiving end of your incredibly condescending calls.”

“If you responded to my messages and assured me you were still alive, I wouldn’t have to call.”

“And if you continue to send me messages, I will burn my communicator to _ash_ ,” Nebula growled. To her dismay, her sister only let out a low chuckle, apparently amused by the emptiness of her words.

“So where are you? Have you gotten any closer?” she asked.

“Dervani, and no.” Nebula slumped against the base of the plant with a sullen scowl. “Now you’ve revealed yourself, sister. You only called to gloat.”

“I called to _check on you_ , as I’ve said every time I’ve called,” she said firmly. “And...Dervani? I haven’t thought of that place in a really long time. Does it still smell of fruit?”

Nebula inhaled. The sharpness of her senses guided her to a nearby shrub nearly bursting with ripe fruit. She kept herself low in the tall grass as she crawled over to it so she could take one, turning it over in her hand for a moment to examine it for poison spots before taking a generous bite. Her stomach growled in appreciation. “Yes.”

“I remember how hungry and warm we were, the first day Thanos sent us there.” She made a soft, quiet noise that Nebula couldn’t quite identify. “I had a sprained ankle, and you had three broken fingers, but still, we were to prove our worth before we were allowed to eat.”

“I have no intention of exchanging sentiments over a time in which I hated you most.” Nebula’s stomach now bubbled unpleasantly with contempt. “All _I_ remember is you throwing the fight so you could prove it was the only way I could win.”

“I threw the fight because we were _starving_ , Nebula,” she snapped. “You don’t get to change history to fit your vendetta. I am not the cruel, conspiring sister you make me out to be. I cared for you more than you ever realized.”

“Then why didn’t you _say_ so?!” Her voice rang clear across the forest; if there were any enemies nearby, they were now sure to know where she was. Then, quieter, “We can have this argument over and over again, but it will not change the fact that you cannot accept your own failures. I am not the one to blame for the state of our relationship.”

“Then you’re saying _I’m_ the one to blame for you turning out the way you did?” Her voice was thick with emotion, on the verge of tears. “That _I’m_ the one who tortured you, took you apart, bled you dry?”

Nebula’s reply was immediate. “Yes.” She looked at the barely-eaten fruit in her hand. It was starting to go sour in her mouth. “In a way.”

Her breath was so sharp that the communicator screeched out a mess of static in protest. “I won’t apologize for wanting to protect myself. But I _will_ apologize for not being the sister you wanted me to be.” Another noisy inhale, clearly fighting back the sob that wanted to escape her throat by now. “Come back, Nebula. We can do this together. As friends, as sisters, as honest allies. The way we were meant to.”

“No, I...I don’t think I will.” Nebula ended the call before she could protest, tossing the communicator aside in frustration. She took another bite of the fruit but could only spit it out right after, unable to enjoy its sweetness.

* * *

Peter poked his head into the common area, unsure of whether it was safe for him to interrupt. “Hey, uh, we’re here. Landing in two minutes.” Both heads turned in his direction, then nodded once in complete silence. He nodded back, then turned and headed to the cockpit, feeling immensely awkward in a way he never usually did.

“You seem uncertain,” Nebula observed, watching the tension in her sister’s face, the rigidity of her brow. “I would be, too, if I were about to give up my existence for another’s.”

“I’m concerned about whether this is going to work at all,” she admitted. “Quill told me of your last encounter with the Sovereign. They sound extremely unlikely to help.”

“After our role in reversing the Decimation, there’s a possibility they will be more willing,” Nebula suggested. “Or...I will make them comply with our demands.”

She scoffed. “I doubt coercion will make them any more agreeable. Their pride, if nothing else, will keep them from helping.” She then softened. “Nebula, if this works...promise me you’ll tell her everything you’ve told me. Everything you experienced growing up together, everything you experienced while you were going after Thanos...every thought and feeling you ever had for her. You’ve been alone for long enough...let this burden us both.” She reached across and gripped Nebula’s hand urgently, her calloused fingers interlaced with Nebula’s mechanical ones. “Promise me. Promise me you will.”

Nebula stared into the face of a Gamora who wasn’t quite hers but had her ferocity all the same. She supposed that, had this happened years ago, she would have yanked her hand away, would have shouted, would have even spat in her face for even implying that all their problems could be solved with just conversation. But now, simply having the chance to talk again with the one she _did_ know sounded like everything she thought they would never have.

“I promise, sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tend to write Gamora and Nebula's relationship as being told from the perspective of two somewhat unreliable narrators where they can't agree on who's to blame and what really happened, so they don't quite get the happy memories that the previous chapters had, but I think in the movie (and this fic) it _is_ made clear how much they mean to each other by now, which makes my heart happy! The final part might be a bit late, as I have an assignment and a midterm coming up, plus conclusions in general tend to take a little longer for me to be satisfied with. Please bear with me if it's not posted by next Friday!
> 
> You can read this fic on [tumblr](https://bevioletskies.tumblr.com/post/185284081699/bring-it-on-home-to-me-45) if you'd like! Thanks so much for reading, comments and kudos would be much appreciated, and see you next time :)


	5. Chapter 5

Gamora woke in a shallow body of water that seemed to stretch onward and forever, for as far as the eye could see. Though she was lying flat on her back, the water level was so low she could see the tips of her toes breaking its surface. She was also fully clothed, the weight of the leather and metal growing even heavier by the second, and she struggled to get herself up into a seated position to look at her surroundings.

The water seemed to be settled over an endless sand dune that curved up and down in graceful, fluid shapes. Colors were made more vibrant by the sharp orange glow of an immortal sunset, casting everything in warm, harsh tones. There was a cliff in the distance whose peak disappeared far beyond the clouds, but there were no other structures, man-made or otherwise, to be seen. Her blood ran cold in the realization of where she was, what had happened the last time she was here, but when she lifted both her hands and opened her clenched fists, they were empty.

She got to her feet, patting her pockets and her utility belt to check that all her weapons were still on her. Once she was certain, she set off in the direction of the cliff. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get to the top, but she knew she’d be damned if she didn’t try.

It wasn’t long before she felt something shift, like a staccato twinge growing insistently in her belly, only she wasn’t hungry, injured, or sore. If anything, it didn’t really disturb her at all, though it did vaguely feel like someone was tapping on her organs, which in itself was a disturbing thought. _Another body modification?_ she thought. Then, _that can’t be right. I escaped Thanos nine years ago._ Another pause. _Nine years?_

Her heart beat just a little bit faster in her chest, and she stopped moving to think, to _really_ think. Nine years, four years, maybe never...it wasn’t about _where_ she was, it was about _when_ she was, wasn’t it? Or something like that, anyway.

She started walking again, her footsteps dragging through the sand. Her gear knocked persistently against her hips as if to remind her it was there, though she saw no foe - or friend - of any kind. A minute passed, then five, then another ten, and she stopped to turn, over and over again, realizing she was no closer than before. She let out a cry of frustration, a noise that was instantly swallowed up by the still atmosphere, but she kept going. Twenty, thirty, forty minutes, all in a numbing silence that made her brain feel fuzzy. There was no wind, no humidity, no nothing, just the vastness of a space that was all too familiar to her, one that she never wanted to be in again.

“What do you think you’ll find up there, my love?”

Gamora froze at the sound of a voice she hadn’t heard in years, years that she could no longer count. She drew her switchblade and turned, finding herself staring at a face that she sometimes couldn’t remember. “Mother?”

“In a way.” She smiled, bittersweet. Her mother looked as if she hadn’t aged a day, looking far closer to Gamora’s age than she had any right to be, wearing the clothes she had been on the day she’d died. “What do you think is at the top of the cliff?”

“The solution...to a problem I can’t identify.” She returned her mother’s placating smile with a wan one of her own. Her blade went back into its holster, though she couldn’t help but keep her hand hovering over its hilt. She wouldn’t put it past Thanos or any number of her enemies for planting a cruel illusion in her head. “I know what happened to me, and I know _why_ it happened. I...must have been brought back here somehow, resurrected and restored. But I don’t belong in this place. I belong with my friends, my family. And if they’re up there, I need to get to them.”

“I don’t imagine you’ll be here for _too_ long,” her mother replied, taking a step closer to brush a loose strand of hair out of her face. “They’re calling for you, darling. They’re waiting for you to come back. But there’s a longing in you to talk to someone, and I’m here to listen.”

She sucked in a breath. “How much time do we have?”

Her mother cupped her jaw. The warmth of her fingers was the first thing Gamora could really, truly feel. “As long as you need.”

* * *

The Sovereign’s medical ward was so blindingly gold that Peter was certain his own father would have wept at the sight of it, though he knew he was in no position to complain about its ostentatiousness. The High Priestess had been hostile at first, as expected, nearly shooting the Benatar right out of the atmosphere before they could even come close to landing, and then looked down at them both figuratively and literally as they knelt in front of her throne, heads bowed, humbling themselves until it pleased her. After long, arduous minutes of grovelling, she granted them subpar food and barely-satisfactory quarters, then called for her best doctors and scientists to prepare Gamora for her procedure. “Their knowledge of the mind, body, and soul comes from my abilities, and my abilities alone. You’ll find they’re unlike anything else you can find on any other world,” she had simpered. The Guardians didn’t care much for the details of how her so-called “spirit restoration” powers worked, only that they would.

“What’s it called?” Peter had asked. They had all been standing around the operating table, which only irritated the head surgeon further. Peter had been bombarding the experts with questions about the effects, the consequences, anything that could possibly go wrong. The others were simply watching Gamora in silent support, hoping they didn’t look as nervous as they felt.

“The Paragon Program,” Ayesha had replied, smiling in a wicked way that made them shiver. “To ensure our people are as perfect as can be. Seeing as your Gamora was the only one who cared to show me any sort of respect during our first encounter, I will grant her with our highest honor, and treat her as one of our own. She will come back more perfect than you could ever imagine.”

Peter had turned to look at Gamora, lying perfectly still on the table in her medical gown. There was a crease of worry between her browbones, but her mouth was set in a hard, straight line of determination. He had smiled in a sort of melancholic manner. “She was already perfect.”

Now, Gamora was alone in the operating room, hooked up to a few machines that the doctors claimed were monitoring her vitals, but looked about as ornate and useless as every other decorative statue on their self-indulgent planet. She took a soft breath in, then out. The first part of the procedure was over - “taking a glimpse into her brain”, as the High Priestess had called it, to make sure she was physically and mentally able to handle what was about to happen. They were giving her a few minutes to herself before continuing with the second part, which they assured her was perfectly safe and had been done dozens of times before, but didn’t make her feel any less wary.

It had become clear to Gamora quite quickly that these Guardians, this apparent team of hers, was more than just her team - they were her family. Nebula had briefly touched on what her relationships with them had been like, but it was also made evident in person. Last night, they had an uncomfortable dinner with the High Priestess who made snide remarks about some incident she knew nothing about, apparently resulting in her people pursuing them on Peter’s father’s planet.

“And here I thought you were the cleverest of your little group, but clearly, you fell in with them for a reason,” Ayesha had said, very well knowing that Gamora had no memory of the event. “Perhaps it wasn’t your knowledge that took your life, but karma. Retribution for your many sins.”

The others had shot out of their chairs immediately. “You take that back, lady!” Rocket had snarled, immediately drawing one of his guns. A few guards flocked to Ayesha’s side, but she merely waved them off with a condescending chuckle.

“Don’t forget, I’m doing all of you _the_ favor of a lifetime,” she had replied. “I suggest you put your weapons down.”

“I _am_ a weapon,” Mantis had shot back, her voice unusually low, her antennae glowing dangerously. “Do not talk badly about Gamora, or it will end badly for you.”

“You’re adorable,” Ayesha had drawled. “Did Quill feed you that line?”

“Do not waste another breath,” Nebula had interjected, looking to the others and meeting their hardened gazes. Slowly, they all sat back down, though Rocket and Peter still had their trigger fingers ready. “We can take comfort in the fact that my sister is, and will always be, a person worth saving.” Nebula narrowed her eyes at Ayesha. “I do not know if the same can be said of you.”

After dinner, the Guardians had gone to linger in a small sitting room, too restless to sleep at a reasonable hour before Gamora’s big day. She had sat by the fireplace, eavesdropping on bits and pieces of conversation happening behind her. She was unable to keep up with the inside jokes and the acerbic banter, but secretly enjoyed the dynamic all the same.

Drax had stopped by briefly to hand her a warm drink. “You seem nervous,” he had observed. “If the High Priestess’s scientists are to be believed, you have a minimal chance of dying.”

Gamora had chuckled, accepting the mug with a grateful smile. “It is no longer death that I’m afraid of. It’s the fear of disappointing all of you. As I’ve been told...as I’ve witnessed...your Gamora was loved.”

“We will be disappointed if it doesn’t work, yes,” Drax had nodded thoughtfully. “But you, as you are, would not disappoint us. You are our friend...despite whatever shortcomings you may have.”

“A heartwarming sentiment,” she had deadpanned, shaking her head amusedly when he continued nodding in blasé agreement before walking away. She had turned back to look at the fire, into its crackling flames, and took a sip of her drink.

Before going to bed, Peter had lingered outside her door, wanting to speak with her in private one last time. She had emerged from the bathroom, caught off-guard by his presence. “Quill?”

“I, uh, I just wanted to thank you again,” he had said. He had sounded rushed, like he was trying to get everything he was thinking out at once. “Couldn’t’ve been an easy decision to make.”

“No, I think it was,” she had said softly. “As I told you on Knowhere, this universe is not my own. This universe was always hers. She saved the galaxy, and the galaxy saved her in return. My purpose is to restore her in the place she belongs, among the people she loves, the people she saves. It’s of no consequence to my existence.”

He had laughed. “You’re more like her than you think, y’know.”

“I hope so.” She had opened the door to her room, her hand lingering on the doorknob, and she turned to look at him. His expression had been impossibly soft, fond, reserved just for her. She had smiled in return. “Goodnight...Peter.”

The head surgeon approached her, drawing her out of her thoughts, looking her up and down rather derisively. “Are you ready for part two?”

Gamora slowly laid back on the table, squeezing her eyes shut so she wasn’t blinded by the overhead lights. She thought of the Guardians, of her sister, of her parents - her _real_ parents, and her rapidly beating heart slowed down to a gentle, steady pulse. “Yes.”

* * *

“You implied you weren’t my mother,” Gamora commented after they’d been walking in companionable silence for some time. Only now did it seem like they were making progress, with the cliff steadily growing closer and closer. “And I doubt you’re her spirit or her soul, either.”

“Clever girl,” her mother said, smiling. “You’re correct. I am none of them. I am, however, part of _your_ soul. A projection, if you will. One you’ve called upon to keep you company on your way back. And...it seems you have some unfinished business to attend to.”

Gamora frowned. “I have no debts, monetary or otherwise. No promises, no vows - ”

“To yourself, my love,” she corrected with a gentle laugh. “There is conflict in you. I don’t think there’s a _single_ person in the entire universe that doesn’t.”

“I’ve made no secret of my feelings about myself,” she said, suddenly finding it hard to look her mother in the eye. “But I’ve also come to accept that not all of my burdens are meant to be borne forever, and they are not meant to burden me, and me alone. What I’ve done, who I’ve become...they’re all a part of me that I have to live with.” She then glanced down at her hands as if she were seeing them for the first time, turning them over and splaying her fingers wide. “And there are memories...they aren’t mine. This body belonged to someone else.”

“I see you’re catching on.” Her mother gestured to a flat rock that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. “Why don’t we sit for a moment? We’re in no rush.”

They both settled down with their legs tucked beneath them, hands folded in their laps in a near-identical manner. The orange glow of the invisible sun wasn’t as blinding by now, having simmered down to something more pleasant to the eye. Gamora could see her mother’s face better this way, and though she knew it wasn’t truly her mother, her heart still ached at the sight of how young she looked. It seemed unjust that she had no wrinkles, no laugh lines, no sunspots, nothing that indicated a life well lived. Her father had been older than her mother by a few years, and had begun forming semi-permanent creases in the corners of his eyes from how much he liked to laugh. His hands had been a little rougher, his joints a little stiffer, but still, he would come home from a long day’s work and sweep Gamora off her feet and onto his shoulders, moving like a man who was ten years younger.

“Do you like yourself, Gamora?”

Her head turned sharply, startled. “Wh...what?”

“Do you find it difficult to answer?” Her mother’s identical dark eyes fixated on her intently. “You seemed certain once that your answer was ‘no’. Have you changed your mind?”

Gamora looked back down at her lap, fiddling with the rings that adorned her fingers. “I hated myself. I hated my life.” Her left hand lacked the scar across her knuckle that she’d gotten during a mission that ended with her and Peter chained together and left dangling over a pit of snarling Vrellnexians. It burned far less than the permanent teeth marks on her thigh from one of Thanos’s training sessions gone wrong (or perhaps entirely right, from his perspective). “I find that that’s no longer the case.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” she said patiently. “Be honest, now. The only one listening is you.”

Gamora smiled to herself. “I...I _do_ like myself. More than I thought I ever would. I have no aspirations of being perfect, but if I put my best effort forward, I feel no need to hold myself to an impossible standard set by me or anyone else.”

“That’s quite a long-winded way of saying ‘yes’,” she remarked dryly. “So you’ve found peace...but you still have regrets.”

“I would think far less of myself if I didn’t regret all the things I did when I was with Thanos.” Gamora shivered reflexively; his name had become a curse. “I’ve done things I’ve regretted even after leaving him...said things I wish I could take back. But there’s no use in punishing myself after I’ve already atoned for my failures. I am no less deserving because of them.”

“Deserving of what, my love?”

Gamora let out an exhale of quiet disbelief. Even her own subconscious couldn’t help but ask the questions she never wanted to be asked, in a time when she wanted nothing more than to finally rest. “Redemption, forgiveness...companionship. My family. I’ve earned every last one...haven’t I?”

“I’ve never known you to be so hesitant, Gamora. Say it.” She took both of Gamora’s hands in hers, leaning in closer and closer until Gamora could count all the colors in her eyes. “Say it like you mean it.”

Gamora laughed wetly; she had never felt so ridiculous in her life. She closed her eyes, lifted her chin, and smiled. “I deserve to be happy.”

And just like that, she felt a warmth in her chest, a weight off her shoulders, a soft breeze whistling through her hair. It was like all the cliches in the world had come to life, ones that she thought only existed in the fantasies of others, having long abandoned entertaining such ideas so long ago. There was no magical epiphany or glorious music, exactly, but an ease in her body, a comfort in her mind, that made it known it wasn’t over for her, not even in death.

She opened her eyes; her mother’s smile was radiant, more than the invisible sun could ever hope to be. “Are you ready?”

Gamora’s face fell somewhat. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to return to a life without you. But yes...I’m ready.”

Her mother’s smile turned into something a little sadder, more than a little bit full of longing, and pulled Gamora into a warm embrace. She smelled of sweet medicine and freshly-cut flowers, her hair tickling Gamora’s nose. Gamora squeezed her eyes shut, harder this time, and let out a contented sigh. She needed just one more minute before letting go.

* * *

Three days came and went, and to everyone’s dismay, Gamora remained asleep in her preservation pod with no sign of waking up. Even the Sovereign experts were beginning to fret, though they tried not to let it outwardly show, given how volatile the Guardians could be. They were already starting to pick fights with each other as if they were to blame. Peter and Drax yelled at each other often and at length, while Rocket threatened to shoot them both with the Hadron Enforcer if they didn’t shut up. Mantis worried more loudly than everyone else, having unfortunately taken on the brunt of their heightened emotions that now seared through her brain like the worst imaginable migraine one could have. What little optimism Nebula had left was slowly dwindling away, leaving her snapping at everyone in sight and stomping around like a child.

“With respect, High Priestess, we ask for a closer look at her records,” Peter had said on the morning of the fourth day, kneeling in front of her throne. The others were knelt beside him; there was no room for temper tantrums or snark this time.

“My medics insist upon complete doctor-patient privilege,” she had replied. “But...if you wish to see her heart rate and brain activity, I see no harm in granting you permission. I’m warning you now, Guardians...you may not like what you see.”

Everyone kept watch by Gamora’s side, rotating in paired shifts so they could attempt to get some restless sleep. Conversation was kept to a minimum, no one daring to voice their worries out loud, risking the start of yet another argument. The Sovereign were being unusually generous for the time being, promising that there would be no debt for food, shelter, or medical treatment otherwise, but they had the feeling that could change at any moment.

On the evening of the fifth day, as the sun was setting and everyone was pleasantly full from the usual lush Sovereign dinner, Peter was scrolling through the Zune’s catalogue but not really paying attention to any song that popped up on the screen. Nebula was sat beside him with her arms folded across her chest, watching her sister’s face through the glass of the preservation pod unblinkingly.

“I became a Guardian in your absence.” The suddenness of her voice caused Peter to fumble with the Zune, nearly dropping it on the golden tile floor. “Otherwise...Rocket would have had no one. Like me.”

“He grows on you, don’t he?” Peter remarked. He sounded oddly fond considering he and Rocket had a spat about Ayesha’s true intentions just two hours ago, and had resorted to glowering at each other across the dining table in seething silence.

“My point, Quill…” she said through gritted teeth, “...is that I became a Guardian out of necessity. Now, it is merely a choice I have to make.” She turned to look him dead in the eye. “Whether my sister returns as she was or as she is or...not at all...my choice remains the same.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “Oh!”

“God, you’re an idiot,” she sighed, though there wasn’t any real heat behind her words.

Peter merely grinned in a sort of endearing way that incited Nebula’s usual urge of wanting to punch him, or at the very least elbow him in the gut so he’d stop. She begrudgingly found herself unable to do so since he looked happier than he had in days. “I’m not even gonna bother responding to that. But I was right - you’re a Guardian, through and through.”

“Of my own choice, not of your volition,” she sneered. She was already starting to regret saying anything.

“And she’s gonna come back,” he continued. “Gamora don’t give up so easy.”

“I believe it’s a matter of ‘if’, not ‘when’.” Nebula’s gaze returned to her sister’s face, the only thing she could see through the small glass window. Her expression remained the same - a semi-relaxed posture, her eyes comfortably shut, her mouth in a sort of half-smile. She looked like she was dreaming about something pleasant, something she didn’t want to leave behind.

“It’s gonna be ‘when’,” Peter insisted, frowning. “C’mon, Nebula, don’t think like that.”

“I have spent my whole life thinking like that,” she murmured. “You and I both saw her vital readings, her bloodwork. The chances of her returning to us are minimal, returning to us in a restored state even less so.”

He laughed in disbelief. “You never know when to quit, do you? You’re always about the worst-case scenario, and the murderin’, and, and the _attitude_ , god, it’s the worst! Woulda thought you’d’ve changed at least a _little_ in five years.”

“Coming from a man who still insists he can talk his way out of any situation and refuses to mature past his idealized childhood,” she shot back. “You’re an imbecile, Quill. It’s no wonder your ‘friends’ are seeking a _real_ leader.”

“And you’re a piece of work,” he snapped, shooting to his feet. “What was I thinkin’, wanting you to be a Guardian when we can’t even have a nice moment for two damn minutes? Maybe I don’t wanna think about the fact that we might’ve just _killed another Gamora_!”

Nebula recoiled like she’d been slapped clean across the face, though Peter hadn’t made any sort of move towards her aside from the blazing anger in his eyes. They stared at each other for a moment, not daring to move a muscle. Then, there was a quiet, yet distinctive cough.

“You haven’t killed me yet. But if you continue to argue - ”

“Gamora,” Peter breathed. He immediately ran to the control screen, his fingers trembling as he clumsily navigated his way through several menus before finding what he was looking for. The pod opened with a soft hiss; Nebula could feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears, drowning out the sound of Peter’s poorly-concealed sniffles.

Her initial footsteps were wobbly, her knees knocking together as if she’d never learned how to walk. Peter was by her side in an instant, threading his arm underneath her armpits to keep her upright, guiding her over to a medical bed so she could sit down. Her breath was ragged from the limited oxygen, and she was blinking drowsily into the blindingly golden light, but she was undoubtedly, undeniably alive.

“Sister,” Nebula said quietly. “Do you know us?”

Gamora glanced between them. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “Yes.” An odd expression then crossed her face, as if she were just now realizing where she was and what had happened. “My mother...I saw my mother.”

“How is that...possible?” Peter said slowly, kneeling beside her. He tentatively reached out to cup her face, letting out a relieved sigh when she leaned into the touch. “What happened, Gamora? You’ve been asleep for _five_ days.”

“I think...I was in my own realm of the Soul Dimension. Before I went under, I thought of all the people I loved. Maybe that’s why my mother appeared to me. We talked for a while, though not enough.” The corners of Gamora’s mouth tugged upwards, though it seemed reluctant. “I didn’t want to leave her. Not when we had all the time in the universe.”

“So that’s why you didn’t wake up right away,” he reasoned. When she opened her mouth to protest, he took her face in both hands, holding her gently. “Hey, no, it’s okay. Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I just...if I saw my mom...I dunno if I’d even have the strength to come back at all. But you did. You always did.”

Gamora placed her hands over his, warm to the touch. He laughed wetly, sinking back further on his heels until his chin was practically resting right on her lap. “I knew I couldn’t stay forever, but it’s alright. I got what I wanted, I said what I needed to say, and now, I feel...peaceful.”

“You _were_ sleeping for a really long time,” he teased, wiping hastily at the tears streaking down his face as he got to his feet. “I’ll get you some water. I should call the doctors in here - hell, our friends, too - ”

“Wait.” Gamora stood as well, steadier this time, and carefully made her way over to Nebula, coming to a stop right in front of her. She was stiff, frozen in place, her eyes following her sister’s every move. “I have memories that don’t belong to me, pieces of conversations that were had with my other self. This must be another’s body, then.”

“Yes.” Nebula hesitated. “Do you remember what I said to your other self while I was held prisoner on Sanctuary?”

Gamora nodded; her eyes were wet now, too. “That we became friends. Sisters.”

Without warning, Nebula suddenly stepped forward and threw her arms around Gamora, pulling her into the tightest hug she’d ever received. Nebula’s elbows were locked tight, her feet an awkward distance away from Gamora’s, but her face was buried in Gamora’s hair, her shoulders trembling from her half-hearted attempt at suppressing her emotional exhaustion. Gamora laughed, wrapping her arms around Nebula’s shoulders in return, her tears falling freely down her cheeks. Peter smiled privately in silent victory, then quietly slipped out of the room to get the others while Gamora and Nebula sank into each other's embrace like they belonged there all along.

* * *

Gamora walked down the landing ramp of the Benatar with a loud exhale, glad to be free of its odorous atmosphere (Rocket had done some experimental tests with the pipes, damaging the air filtration system as a result). After leaving Sovereign, the Guardians had made a brief stopover on the newly-rebuilt Xandar to speak with Nova Prime, and then left for a three-day-long journey for another planet that remained a mystery to Gamora. All she knew was that it wasn’t for their first mission since her return, but rather a place for rehabilitation until everyone got their bearings back.

Her reunion with everyone else had been overwhelmingly emotional as expected, a complete onslaught of sloppy hugs and messy tears and nonsensical elation, and they’d barely left her alone ever since. Aside from Peter’s relief at being able to share a bed with her again, she never had a meal to herself or even a _moment_ to herself. She couldn’t argue, though, thinking back to the handful of times that one of them had been injured or sick, and she would hover and fuss until they were more frustrated with her than whatever was actually ailing them.

“Over there,” Peter called from behind her. She turned to see him gesturing off into the distance at something, and she followed his eye line to see what it was. The planet seemed amiable, with fresh air and clear skies, green grass beneath her boots and trees that swayed in the mild winds. It was all so... _normal_ , so quiet and gentle and calm. They were in an empty field that stretched on for quite a while before it was interrupted by a tall metal fence. Beyond that was the remains of a building, and what looked to be the beginning of construction for its replacement. It almost seemed familiar, like something her other self knew of but hadn’t remembered very well.

Gamora had grown used to the idea of her other self, a little piece of her soul that had nestled itself neatly in her brain. The Guardians had been keeping a close eye on her to make sure she wasn’t exhibiting any strange behaviors or voicing any worrying thoughts. It seemed, though, that the other Gamora simply existed with no interference or intention. It also meant that she remembered everything Peter and Nebula had said to her, relieving them of the burden of having to say it all over again. Peter seemed intent on retelling his stories anyway as he was oft to do, but Nebula went about it awkwardly, uncertain of how to express any sort of sentiment or affection aside from a stiff pat on the shoulder when they passed by each other on the ship.

“I still don’t understand why we’ve returned to _here_ , of all places,” Nebula complained, kicking a nearby rock out of spite. “This is no idyllic paradise. It’s the remains of a battlefield.”

Gamora paused. “Was this where we fought Thanos?”

Nebula shuddered. “Yes. This is where he died.”

“Peter...this is your home planet. This is Terra,” Gamora said slowly. “You said you never wanted to come back.”

“Yeah, well, I say a lot of things,” Peter shrugged, jogging up beside her and holding out his hand. She took it automatically, interlacing their fingers together, and they began walking with the others following suit. “We’ve got allies here who can keep us safe, and I figured we’d want a little peace and quiet before going back to saving the galaxy.”

“Are you kiddin’? This planet’s never gonna have peace and quiet again,” Rocket snorted. “Everyone in the whole d’ast _galaxy_ is talking about what happened here. Believe me, some other big baddie is gonna get some ideas about comin’ to play.”

“Way to think positive, dude,” Peter snarked, shaking his head.

“Rocket may have a point. Terra is inevitably doomed,” Drax added unhelpfully.

“Don’t agree with me, man, it’s weird,” Rocket complained.

“I am Groot,” Groot said, nearly stumbling over his own feet due to his refusal to look up from his video game screen. He’d been lovingly attentive to Gamora for about two days before she lectured him about eating junk food, and had since gone back to being as sullen as ever.

“So...this is our home for now, then?” Gamora asked. She inhaled another lungful of air; it wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than anything she’d ever experienced on the ship.

“For now.” Peter squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, momentarily reassured.

Their temporary home was a guesthouse with a deck that went out over a lake, far enough from the construction site that the forest obscured the sound of the workers and machinery. Nebula had vaguely explained to her who the guesthouse belonged to and Peter had mentioned they’d been invited to dinner, but truthfully, all she wanted to do was collapse into a bed that didn’t feel like it was made of rock and sleep for a good twelve hours.

Gamora slept for a few hours before waking up, somewhat groggy but alert enough to hear the sounds of the others milling around in the shared living space, chatting quietly. She sat on the edge of the bed, facing the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows of her and Peter’s bedroom, smiling at the sight of birds flitting past the glass, skimming the surface of the lake and disappearing among the trees. She basked in a minute or two of warm silence before there was a knock at the door. “Gamora?”

“Come in,” she called. Mantis stepped in with a bright smile a moment later, her antennae giving off a pleasing glow. “Are we leaving for dinner soon?”

“Not yet. I just wanted to talk to you, I suppose,” Mantis admitted. “Is that okay?”

“Of course.” Gamora softened, patting the spot beside her for Mantis to sit down. “Is something wrong?”

Mantis turned to look her straight on; it was slightly unsettling given the enormity of her eyes. “Did you really speak to your mother?”

“Yes.” Gamora swallowed thickly. “It was...enlightening.”

“May I?” Mantis held out her hand, hovering it mere inches above Gamora’s. At her wordless nod, she gently wrapped her fingers around Gamora’s wrist, then inhaled sharply, her eyes fluttering shut. “You feel...calm. There is some uncertainty about what our future is going to be, but you seem very peaceful. Happy.” Her eyes opened, gazing at Gamora curiously. “What did you talk to her about?”

“It wasn’t...her, exactly.” Gamora hesitated. “But it helped to think of it as her. Like she was guiding me from the afterlife.”

Mantis removed her hand, a melancholic smile crossing her face. “I do not know anything about my parents. Their names, their faces...or if they are still alive. You are very lucky to have seen her again, even if it was not _really_ her.”

“There are still so many unanswered questions for almost all of us,” Gamora mused. “While Drax has a clear understanding of his heritage, and Peter’s solved the terrible truth of his father, Groot has no connection to his history aside from his old memories, Rocket has yet to confront his creator, and you - ”

“ - do not even know what planet I am from,” Mantis said mournfully. “I do not know where my powers came from, either.”

“Then that can be our next mission,” Gamora suggested. “We have supplemental pay from the Nova Corps, enough to give us the time to learn more about ourselves. You deserve to know. We _all_ deserve to know who we are.”

Mantis’s returning grin was almost blinding. “I would like that very much,” she said, beaming. “I think we are all very tired of fighting wars. Being here on Peter’s planet to just relax is so nice. There is so much...room!”

Gamora couldn’t help but chuckle at Mantis’s childlike wonder, the stars in her eyes. There was a time when she would have thought her too idealistic, too immature, but now, her joy was infectious, absolutely radiant in its triumph. She got to her feet, gesturing for Mantis to follow. “We should go ask the others what they think. I doubt any of them are desperate to jump into another battle any time soon, though you never know with Rocket and Drax especially.”

“Oh, I almost forgot - Peter wanted to talk to you before we go to dinner,” Mantis said mysteriously. “He is out on the deck.”

Mantis and Gamora walked out into the living room, smiling at the sight of Groot, Drax, and Nebula gathered around the television, playing some sort of video game where they appeared to be racing spaceships. Rocket was stood on the armrest of the couch, shouting instructions at Groot and profanities at the others; Nebula occasionally lifted one hand from her controller to flip him off without looking back. Gamora walked over to watch for a moment, reaching down to briefly squeeze her sister’s shoulder. Nebula instinctively shivered, then patted Gamora’s hand in return, once, twice, and pulled away.

Gamora found Peter leaning against the railing of the deck, much like he had on Knowhere when her other self had first found him. Instead of empty bottles, his Zune sat at his feet, playing a familiar song. He was notably more put-together than he had been in months, his facial hair neatly trimmed and his clothes not quite as unruly as before. “Peter?”

He turned immediately at the sound of her voice. “Hey, you sleep okay?”

“Really well, actually. The beds here are far nicer than the mattresses on the Benatar,” she replied, walking up to join him. “Mantis said you wanted to talk to me about something.”

“I could talk to you about a lot of things,” he chuckled. “Honestly, I still can’t believe it worked. That you’re here, for real this time. I...we almost lost you, Gamora.” He chewed his bottom lip worryingly. “Is, uh...is the other one still in your head?”

“Yes, but it’s not as invasive as it seems,” she reassured him. “Mantis and I were talking about our next potential mission. We were thinking about how she, Rocket, and Groot know so little about their origins, how they deserve to know.”

“Yeah, well, we met my dad and we all know how _that_ turned out,” Peter muttered, his expression souring.

“I don’t think it’ll always be like your father. Maybe Mantis’s parents will be more like mine.” She smiled. “Only...alive.”

He laughed, startled by the somewhat dark joke, and leaned into her, their shoulders brushing together. “I mean, if it’s what you guys want, I’m not gonna fight it. Think it’s about time we acknowledge who the _real_ leader of this team is - you.”

“It can be both of us,” she insisted, frowning. “Nebula and I spent years resenting each other because we were forced to compete. But you and I, we have a choice. Let’s not make the wrong one.”

Peter fully turned to face her, slipping his hands in hers and bringing them down between them. He lowered his head, their foreheads meeting in the middle, and closed his eyes. He almost looked agonized. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do it.”

“Do wh...oh, Peter.” She released one of his hands so she could cup his cheek. “You kept your promise. Everything that happened afterwards...I would’ve liked to have been the one to kill him. I’m sure Nebula feels the same way. But what matters, what _really_ matters, is that we all made it in the end, and the rest of our lives belong to us. Not to a madman, not to a myth, but just...us. As it should be.”

With a tilt of her chin, her mouth met his, and he melted beneath her touch, all the tension in his shoulders slipping away. He deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around her waist so he could pull her impossibly close. After a quiet moment passed, only punctuated by the sounds of the birds and the Zune, she stepped back to meet his soft gaze. “I love you,” he murmured.

Her words came easy. “I love you, too.” She took another step back as if to turn and make her way back inside, but he kept a firm grip on her hands. “Peter, we have to get ready for dinner.”

“Dance with me.” She shivered; the cadence of his voice was the same as every other time he’d ever asked. “C’mon, one minute and we’ll head back.”

“Fine,” she sighed, moving closer once more. With his hands at the small of her back, Peter guided them step-by-step across the deck, the heels of their boots clicking in synchronicity as they did. Gamora closed her eyes and splayed her palms across his chest, drank in the sunlight that washed over her face, took in the muffled sounds of her friends yelling at each other inside, embraced the feeling of Peter’s heart beating beneath her fingers. She wasn’t thinking about the next mission or payment, the next argument or victory. It was just her, the ones she loved, and a perfect little piece of clarity.

_Bring it to me, bring your sweet loving...bring it on home to me..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends another fic conclusion in which I've doubled the usual word count and gone full-on sentimental! I honestly could have gone on forever and ever with the reunions and conversations, but then I think it would get a little too repetitive. There was a scene I cut in which Peter and Rocket talked about how Rocket dealt with all the Guardians being gone and Peter's guilt about Titan, but I wanted this chapter to be focused on Gamora. If I were to continue on from here, the Guardians would be on their way to look for Rocket's creator, but not before making a stop in Missouri to visit Peter's mother's grave.
> 
> In case anyone happens to read my fic regularly, I'm taking a tiny break from Peter/Gamora (including _across the universe_ ) to finish up some Scott/Hope fics I've had sitting around for quite some time (a post- _Endgame_ fic and a multi-part AU, in case anyone's interested). I'll come back to them eventually, I promise! I may also open fic prompts again since it's been a while.
> 
> You can read this fic on [tumblr](https://bevioletskies.tumblr.com/post/185600454394/bring-it-on-home-to-me-55) if you'd like! Thanks so much for reading, comments and kudos would be much appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed my self-indulgent journey through my _Endgame_ feelings :)


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